Big 12 Baseball Championship Pairings

By Laura Rasmussen

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May 19, 2013 04:20 PM

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Regular season champion Kansas State enters the 2013 Phillips 66 Big 12 Baseball Championship as the No. 1 seed. The event is set for Wednesday, May 22-Sunday, May 26, at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City.

This marks the first time the Wildcats have clinched the No. 1 seed with their previous best at No. 3 in 2010. K-State (39-16, 16-8) won its first Big 12 baseball regular season title with a walk-off victory against No. 19 Oklahoma on Friday night in Manhattan. This marks the eighth championship appearance for Kansas State, which was the tournament’s No. 8 seed in 2012.

Kansas State will face No. 8 Texas Tech (25-28, 9-15), which secured the final spot in the event by winning two-of-three against Baylor this past weekend. The two teams last met in the postseason tournament in the opening round of the 2002 event.

Baylor (27-25, 12-11) and Oklahoma (36-19, 13-11), the only two league teams to make every Championship field, will open play with the 9:00 a.m. game on Wednesday. The two teams faced off twice at last year’s event with OU winning both contests en route to the Championship finale, however, BU took the 2013 regular season series from OU in Waco. Of the current league teams participating in the event, the Bears (.509) and Sooners (.500) have the best winning percentages.

League newcomer West Virginia (31-25, 13-11), selected last in the coaches’ preseason poll, captured the No. 3 seed and will play sixth-seeded Kansas (31-22, 12-12) in the first game of Wednesday’s second session. The Mountaineers swept the Jayhawks in regular season play with each game decided by one run. This is the Jayhawks seventh championship appearance.

Oklahoma State (39-14, 13-10) will be the No. 2 seed for the fourth time overall and first since 2008. The Cowboys will face No. 7 TCU (28-26, 12-12), which won the regular season series in Fort Worth. Both teams are carrying momentum into the postseason with OSU winners of 15 of its last 19 games and three consecutive Big 12 series. TCU is coming off series victories over West Virginia and Texas.

The Championship is played under a two-division, double-elimination format. The eight teams with the best league records (based on winning percentage) in regular season competition qualify for the event and are divided into two division with seeds 1, 4, 5 and 8 in division one and seeds 2, 3, 6 and 7 in division two. There is no cross-division play until two team reach the championship game on Sunday.

FOX Sports Media Group is televising the entire championship to a national audience for the first time. FOX Sports Networks (FSN) will televise the championship final. All games leading up to the final will air on FOX College Sports (FCS).

The winner of the 2013 Phillips 66 Big 12 Baseball Championship earns the league’s automatic bid into the 2013 Division I NCAA Baseball Championship. The Road to Omaha Selection Show will air on Monday, May 27 at 11 a.m. CT on ESPNU.

Single-session tickets will be available on Monday, May 20. All-session tickets are available from $87 for terrace reserved to $117 for box seating to $202 for club-level seats. A limited number of weekend passes are also available starting at $67. All-session tickets include all games, including the if-necessary games, totaling 15 games. Tickets can be purchased by calling the Oklahoma City RedHawks Box Office at (405) 218-1000 or by visiting Big12Sports.com